Sable Cookies Recipes

Sablés are probably one of my favorite cookies. These crumbly cookies hail from France's Normandy region. They're sometimes served with fruit preserves or covered with chocolate, so I thought I'd combine the two and create this unique version with coarsely chopped Belgian chocolate and fresh blueberries.

The crisp, tender, crumbly and lightly sweetened cookies were so delicious the entire family wondered why I didn't bake more. So to fill this temporary void in our lives, I baked a second batch! Mission accomplished.

I love to bake cookies. And when I have free time, I usually make cookie dough to freeze so whenever we have surprise guests, I have warm cookies freshly baked out of the oven. Today, I prepared a small batch of spritz cookies, which I flavored with cocoa and orange to match the season. These "gâteaux" (cookies in French) were made with brown sugar, so once they're baked, the house is filled with the scent of delicious chocolate-y caramel.

As I've mentioned in the past, baby Aria's eating habits are very similar to my husband’s. She loves sweets. She finished almost half the batch this afternoon before the girls even got back home from school. Naughty girl!

I've made spritz sablécookies before. The most recent variation was one made of orange and dark chocolate. The girls felt like baking today and they really wanted to make a fresh batch of the sablé cookies. I was all for it but I wanted to teach them to be creative and come up with a new flavor combination.

There was a tall pitcher of my mint and cardamom-flavored Arnold Palmer on the counter. Sunny, the eldest, looked over at it, then back at me, and said "why not mint and cardamom-flavor spritz sablé?". - I thought it was a brilliant idea. If you browse through the recipes on the website, you'll notice that I use cardamom in almost everything, from savory dishes, to drinks, to desserts. I knew it would make a perfect flavoring for the cookies.

I didn't want to add mint extract directly to the cookie dough because I thought it would be to overpowering. Instead, I used Guittard pink-colored mint chocolate chips to make a ganache, which I dipped the cookies in, once they baked and cooled. These particular spritz cookies are thicker and chewier than the orange and dark chocolate version. They both taste great so it's really a matter of personal preference. Try both and see which one you like!

Spritz sablé cookies are French butter cookies. They have a very rich flavor. Depending on the shape of the cookie and on the baking time, spritz can either be crumbly or have a chewier texture. Spritz sablé cookiesare the perfect canvas upon which to introduce other flavors. From the basic recipe, you can make an unlimited number of variations.

My little sister-in-law who is allergic to egg yolks (not egg white, go figure!) loves these cookies. They are one of the few sweet treats she can enjoy. I made some today and flavored them with orange blossom water. I then dipped them in dark chocolate to make them extra decadent.

Sablé cookies are very famous in Brittany on the West Coast of France. They are very similar to shortbread, except they are made with egg yolks. They also have a characteristic sandy outside edge and they are very rich in butter. Sablés have a mild sweetness that is a perfect complement for sweet mousses or parfaits.

These cookies take me back in time to my childhood. I remember coming back from school and inhaling them with a huge glass of milk.